The Taste-Thirst Connection

Excerpt from Transcending the Everyday Temptations of Overeating

Part Three

Overeaters know the techniques of weight loss, but we know very little about normal eating. Pounds are lost during times of high motivation, but because we don't understand how to eat normally, the pounds quickly return. Years of dieting have driven us even further away from the ability to make natural eating decisions. We've become slaves to our food cravings, insensitive to stomach fullness, confused about what to eat, and subject to stress-induced eating.

The good news is: overeaters can learn to eat normally. Presented here are four practical habits to recover normal eating behavior. If you form these habits, food cravings will diminish and food consumption will naturally decrease. In addition, food decisions will simplify, and stress-induced eating will subside. In short, you will actually begin to feel like a normal eater.

The Four Habits for Normal Eating are convenient, easy to remember, satisfying, and natural. There are no special recipes to prepare and no detailed menus to follow. This is a reliable and flexible plan for all eating situations. It will help you steer safely and surely through the eating day.

This plan did not suddenly occur to me one day. It evolved from experiences and observations I made over a long period of time. As I tried different eating plans, I began to keep track of the underlying physical reasons why I overate. I realized that I wanted to design a plan that would help to alleviate these causes. One of the first causes I noticed was what I call the taste-thirst connection. So this is where I will begin.

The taste-thirst connection to food cravings

Overeaters have terrible troubles with taste. The pleasure of taste lures us to food and keeps us fascinated. We overeat, in part, because we love the taste of certain types of food. Sometimes we enjoy these foods so much we say we're addicted to them. For many people, chocolate is the food that feels addicting. For others it is salty snack food. Still others are drawn to an array of tantalizing foods.

The snack food industry exploits that incredible longing for taste. It produces an endless variety of colorfully packaged treats created by combinations of sugar, salt, fat, and chemicals. Convenience foods make it too easy to indulge our taste buds all day long. We try various ways to suppress the appetite; but for those who are lured and fascinated by taste, the urge to eat is still there. Some overeaters overindulge only at mealtimes. Yet, many of us love to snack with abandon between meals.

By contrast, thin people drink beverages between meals. I noticed this when I was at a shopping mall one day. A thin young mother passed me, trying to console her fussy preschooler. I overheard her say, "Let's go get something to drink." It occurred to me that if the young mother had been overweight I might have heard, "Let's go get something to eat." That is certainly what I would have said. I would have gone in search of a tasty snack food. After that, it seemed like everywhere I looked, I saw thin people depending on all manner of sugary beverages to get them through the day. They did not concern themselves with the calorie count or sugar content of the beverage. At parties, the thin people would sit back, content with a regular soda or glass of wine. Heavier people would cling to a sugar-free soda, while glancing furtively at the snack table.

I also noticed that thirst played an important role in how much food I consumed. If I was thirsty, I ate more. Often, I didn't even know I was thirsty. I would misinterpret my thirst as the desire for food. Food was the answer to all discomfort, even the discomfort of thirst.

As I observed these things, I wondered if the typical overeater has a stronger than normal taste urge, in addition to difficulty in discerning thirst. Do these two problems work together to increase the desire to eat?

I began to believe that thirst, combined with the desire for taste, becomes a powerful physical inducement to overeat. It's possible this is what brings about many strong food cravings. Taste and thirst both originate in the mouth, not the stomach. It's as if the desire for taste is intensified by thirst. Even the experience of binge eating seemed strangely like drinking. The rapid and continuous consumption of food is strongly suggestive of gulping water when very thirsty.

Based on these subjective observations, I decided to allow, if not encourage, myself to rely upon a wide variety of beverages. In doing this, I hoped to take a giant step toward satisfying, or at least calming, that mischievous taste-thirst urge. I was also simply copying what I observed normal eaters doing.

End of excerpt from Part Three of Transcending the Everyday Temptations of Overeating

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